“MDOT has made significant constructive changes to their original plans,” wrote the Route 1 North Advisory Committee, in a July 1 memo to the Camden Select Board. “However, they have been unwilling to meet with either this committee or the Select Board, and partly as a result of this unwillingness to consider the impact of the entire plan on the Town of Camden, their modifications are inadequate in our view.”

The committee consists of Richard Bernhard, Nancy Caudle-Johnson, Toni Grassi, Sasha Laurita, Geoff Scott, Jennifer Simon, Jane Lafleur and Beedy Parker.

On Tuesday, July 10, the Camden Select Board will take the matter up for discussion at a regularly scheduled meeting that begins at 6:30 p.m. in the Washington Street Conference Room. Select Board meetings are broadcast live on Time Warner Channel 1303 and streamed live.     The meeting packets are available here.

The rebuild, which includes making major repairs to the state arterial highway as well as two bridges, was expected to begin in 2017, but has been pushed forward. It was first estimated to cost $4.4 million in 2015. An additional $1.5 million replacement of the Spring Brook bridge and the $700,000 replacement of the Great Brook Bridge was be done at the same time as the highway rebuild.

Three years later, costs now are estimated at $5.5 million for the highway rebuild, with $2.5 million targeted for the Spring Brook Bridge, and $700,000 for Great Brook Bridge. Those costs are included in the DOT’s 2018-2019-2020 Work Plan.

The DOT’s Work Plan outlines the project as beginning .56 miles north of the Sagamore Farm Road, and continuing for 1.54 miles to the Lincolnville town line. It includes a seven-foot raise of the Spring Brook Hill bridge, where vehicle crashes have been frequent, especially during the winter. According to DOT meeting minutes, there were 16 crashes alone in that section of the road in two years.

The Camden Route 1 North project includes reconfiguring slopes and roadbed, clearing trees so sun can dry the highway in the winter, and creating an 11-foot travel lane with five-foot-wide paved shoulders on either side. The DOT, acting as the State of Maine, owns four rods — or 66 feet — of highway width as it passes through communities.

The stretch of highway passes through Camden residential and mixed-use zones, dotted with homes, a few farms, lodging establishments, and parts of the Camden Hills State Park. The 100-mile stretch of Route 1 through the Midcoast has been cited by the Federal Highway Administration in the Gateway One Corridor Plan of 2011.

In mid-June, Route 1 North Advisory Committee Chairman Toni Grassi asked the Camden Select Board to slow down and review the latest set of rehabilitation and reconstruction plans that had been submitted to the town in June.

The committee also questions why the DOT has not developed a plan for the stretch of road to Lincolnville Beach, “when that will be done and how it will relate to the Camden work.”

In its Work Plan, the DOT does include a $198,992 expenditure to pave 5.44 miles of Route 1 beginning .3 miles south of the Lincolnville town line and extending north into Northport.